


two slow dancers

by eurydiced



Series: lunoct week 2020 [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Bittersweet, F/M, Lunoct Week 2020, Post-Final Fantasy XV, Sunrises, throws this @ ao3 and r UNS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:53:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26232226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eurydiced/pseuds/eurydiced
Summary: Here, the sun was a candle flame on the distant mountains, flickering with brittle strength against the retreating dark. It rippled across the lake, gold stepping stones trailing straight to the sky; it stained the water with pale and fiery shades and cast the splintered stumps of pond cypress trees as silhouettes, jagged teeth scraping the water.The air was clean and cool, and it all felt...quiet. Outside and in. Noctis breathed slow, and the world breathed with him.He’d thought—with the same quiet, lonely ache that always accompanied a jewel-bright moon or stained glass sky or ocean view—Luna should see this too.*luna, noctis, and the return of the dawn.
Relationships: Lunafreya Nox Fleuret/Noctis Lucis Caelum
Series: lunoct week 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1940125
Comments: 5
Kudos: 15
Collections: Lunoct Week 2020





	two slow dancers

**Author's Note:**

> (please see the endnote for content warnings)

Noctis rarely caught the sunrise. He was a nocturnal creature, barely coherent before ten a.m., his adolescence marked by flickering screens at unholy hours and passing out on sofas, phone in hand, in jeans and T-shirt; in the Lucian outlands at rune-marked campsites, raising him in the mornings had been a herculean task which, more often than not, took three people (one to brew the coffee, one to kick him in the ribs, and one to prod his chek with a frankly _disgusting_ level of cheer for _six a.m._ ).

But he’d caughtdawn over the Vesperpool once: bribed awake by Gladio with the promise of a legendary catch, he’d nevertheless groused and dragged his feet and cursed whatever evil spirit had possessed him to agree to suffer at this hour. But then he’d found himself pulled to a gentle halt at the lake’s edge, staring, because—

He was used to an Insomnian sunrise, if any. Where skyscrapers crowded the horizon like commuters in a train car, and the sun’s colours were muted through the omnipresent ripple of the Wall.

Here, the sun was a candle flame on the distant mountains, flickering with brittle strength against the retreating dark. It rippled across the lake, gold stepping stones trailing straight to the sky; it stained the water with pale and fiery shades and cast the splintered stumps of pond cypress trees as silhouettes, jagged teeth scraping the water.

The air was clean and cool, and it all felt...quiet. Outside and in. Noctis breathed slow, and the world breathed with him.

He’d thought—with the same quiet, lonely ache that always accompanied a jewel-bright moon or stained glass sky or ocean view— _Luna should see this too._

It’s a cutting, precious irony that he’s awake to see the dawn now.

The Vesperpool is still now, a great darkness, like a tear in the dark and ruined world. Not even moonlight breaks its inky surface. Noctis thinks, unbidden, that if he stepped into that lake it would dissolve him.

He swallows the thought, reaching out his hand, palm up. “Here,” he murmurs. Even that feels too loud; the silence is fragile, somehow—something to be handled with care. “It’s a little rocky.”

No moonlight at all. Except Luna—she glows like a star tangled in the trees, a wisp of white and pale gold, close enough to touch, finally, finally, _finally_. She nudges aside the branches and reaches back, long fingers calloused from years of polearm training and violin and letter-writing, and—and Noctis’ stomach _twists_ in the immeasurable second they spend hovering over his own hand, heart juddering to his throat. Luna’s outline wavers. He thinks—

 _—blood and smoke in the water, slipping through his hands which claw and claw at nothing because he can’t, he can’t_ reach _her and he can’t breathe and the ring—_

_—she’s right in front of him, a streak of moonlight at the Citadel gates so bright his eyes burn, but he stumbles forward and his hand only passes through scattered light—_

—no. Her fingertips press into his palm, cool and solid, little sparks jumping under his skin like the fizz of magic in his blood. He barely breathes when he closes his hand around hers, squeezing a little, and she doesn’t disappear. She is bright and real. She doesn’t disappear.

Luna smiles: not the closed, poised smile of a polished orator, but slightly crooked, a little open, showing the gap in her front teeth. It widens when Noctis’ pulse (the _traitor_ ) jumps in his wrist, like a fucking teenager. “My hero,” she teases, hoisting her skirts a little to step over the rocks and marsh. Her dress is pearly and spotless, sharp against the deep black of Noctis’ jacket, draped around her shoulders just because he _could_.

She lets him lead her to the water’s edge. Between the deadening weight of night and their conspiratorial whispers, it feels like—like they’re kids again, like when Luna would show him all the secret hidden passageways of Fenestala Manor and sneak him tarts from the kitchens with those _butter-won’t-melt_ sylleblossom baby-blues ( _paragon of divine virtue, my ass_ ). He tangles his fingers with hers and there’s something—a little _smug_ , almost, about the way Luna’s smile curls, pleased and a little catlike, even as she glances away with redenning cheeks and Noctis swallows around the heart now fluttering in his throat. Stealing little glances at each other like schoolchildren.

It’s alright, though. It’s fine. They have time, now, to figure this out.

They have all the time in the world.

The thought fills his chest—with air—with something thick, like tar—light and heavy at the same time. His ribs feel tight, suddenly, but before he can dwell himself into a black hole, Luna is tugging on his arm and leaning up. Her breath tickles his ear: “Look! Any moment now.”

Noctis looks up, and— _there_. A crack in the sky. A shot of deep, inky blue peering through the choking, black miasma. As they watch, the fissure widens; then another crack, closer to the mountains breaking the horizon. Then another. Something else swells under Noctis’ ribs as Luna leans her warmth into his side and the darkness fractures, the daemonic cloud bleeding away, replaced by sky and sky and more sky and then _finally_ —

The moon trembles in the reflection of the lake, stretching, shedding miasma like a winter coat. A veil of stars follows behind it, winking in the lake as the dark retreats. And—and _there_ , on the horizon. A sliver of paler blue. A promise.

He feels the weight of it— _the first moon in years_ —like his father’s cape on his shoulders. Next to him, Luna leans into his side and sighs, a breathless and quiet rush of air. She’s solid, warm, and somehow it makes Noctis feel so calm even as it sets his pulse off again. But he’s also—tired. He’s so, _so_ tired. He can feel the fog creeping in at the edge of his thoughts and the weary ache in his joints and the gentle-yet-incessant tug on his heart, urging him down to rest. He wonders if Luna feels it, too. If Luna, like him, is holding it at bay. Just a little longer.

How often had he dreamt of this in the Crystal—the simple pleasure of Luna holding his hand?

Something grips him. A spike of bravery.

Noctis catches Luna’s other hand, the one curling around his bicep. Brings it up to his lips, kissing the knuckles there, then brushing them against the pulse point inside her wrist. Luna’s attention snaps to his face, eyes wide, and he sees something which hasn’t changed: Luna blushes _furiously_. Like holding a sunlamp to her face, alarmingly pink against her hair. She ducks her head quickly and Six— _Six_ —he thinks he can’t contain it, the blooming warmth in his chest. The _finally finally finally_ in his head like a holy chorus, the holiest one he’s ever heard.

He clears his throat, but it still sounds a little hoarse when he says, “I loved this place, you know. The Vesperpool. It was one of my favourite places to camp, just—fishing, taking in the lake. Part of me wished I could stay longer here.” His mouth twitches. “Even when I woke up with marsh water in my boots.”

Luna laughs quietly into his shoulder. It hangs in the air, shimmering, like mist. “How glamorous.”

“ _Yeah._ It was always mine, too. I was starting to think Gladio was doing it to mess with me. _Keeping you humble_ —” Luna snickers at the gravelly impression, which, _good_ , because imitating Gladio’s rough-hewn timbre is like gargling rock. “—he would’ve said, probably. Or Prompto, but he couldn’t’ve done it without cracking, y’know? That nerd’s the worst liar I’ve ever met.”

The campsite it still there behind them, a thin tail of smoke curling languidly into the sky. He blinks, and—and for a second he sees shapes in the dark, shadowy imprints. This one looks like the tent, and a long, thin figure— _Ignis_ —stretching, squinting into the early sun.

He turns back to the lake.That one: him and Gladio, crouching at the end of the little wooden pier, ready to haul free their prize from the water. Another: Prompto, crouching with his camera.

Everywhere he looks, an echo of his life. A story. So many stories tucked away in this one obscure, marshy corner of Eos.

His throat is thick.

“I just,” he says. But his voice breaks. He squeezes Luna’s hand for a minute, inhaling slowly, then tries again. “I have so much to tell you, Luna. I saw so much, and—and I could never stop thinking about wanting to see it with _you_. There’s so much that I...”

He feels the way her breath hitches, tickling his collarbone; feels the tip of her nose brush the hollow of his neck. She lets go of the hand at his side and wraps her arm around his waist, tugging him closer, and he lets her. They’re half-leaning against each other now, the weariness of _everything_ heavy in his bones, and his eyes flutter half-closed without permission.

“So do I,” she murmurs. “I don’t—know where to begin, Noctis. Perhaps—we could figure it out, later.”

Right. Later.

_We have time._

Besides...

“You’re gonna love this,” Noctis whispers into her hair. “It’s beautiful here.”

“ _You_ have seen it?” she says, a smile in her voice.

“Ha. Just once. Gladio had to kick me awake.”

“Of course he did,” she says The moon is waning now, and so are they; Luna seems to flicker in the corner of his eye as the sky lightens over the mountains. “It would be beautiful anywhere, though.”

“Yeah. First sunrise in a decade.”

“First sunrise with _you_.”

And that’s—too much, _too much_ , the newness and finality of this simple thing, cracking his heart in two and holding it together all at once. It takes him a minute to find his voice again.

“Yeah,” he says, hushed, exhausted, a little strangled. “That too.”

* * *

The sun breaks the horizon, slow and heavy and kissing the starved earth beneath them, lighting the lake on fire; the world shudders. To the south, a city stirs at the gentle touch of the dawn, squinting into the new light, in awe and fear and hope; somewhere to the east, three men turn to the sky with tear-struck faces, cold and warm all at once, clutching a still hand.

The sunlight crawls along the surface of the water until it finds purchase on the shore, and finds: faint indents, like two pairs of footsteps, scarcely whispers in the dirt.

Then the lake stirs, sighing, lapping gently against the bank, and the whispers are gone.

**Author's Note:**

> you know that one art of luna and noctis by the lake?? yeah :')
> 
> another one originally written for a specific day of lunoct week (day 2, "dawn"), before i realised i wouldn't be able to make all seven days. also lowkey fits day 4 ("boyfriend jacket"). ~~i swear not all of my planned entries for lunoct week were sad~~
> 
>  **title:** two slow dancers (mitski)  
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>  **cw:** canon major character death


End file.
